His Name is Pata Blanca

 

Junior, or Gordo, has a real name: Panfilo, a heroic name in Mexican history. He was finally able to cross the border, and arrived safely to his hometown in eastern Indiana.  He could become annoying with his constant chatter, but at heart I loved the big lug.  He came south with his big brother, Chavello, a couple years earlier,  and roomed with him in the house belonging to the rancher for whom the latter worked.  When Chavello returned to the border to continue his work there, Junior was at a loss.  Victim of a blow to the head as a preschooler, his brain injury limits him a lot; he’ll never be able to live independently.  He soldiered on nobly, taking his laundry to Canatlan, using Western Union to collect money from his Stateside siblings, but really he was struggling.  Of his many brothers and sisters, Chavello seems to be the only one who attempts to help him.  Once he was gone, the rancher forced Junior out. 

               It is just as well that he got back home.  His mother, battling cancer for many years, was happy to have her baby boy, 38 years old, 6’2” and 370 pounds, home with her for the last year of her life.

               Chavello came back this spring to Durango to work for a few weeks with the old rancher.  It was lonely for him without his baby brother.  While he was here he made himself very available to help me on my little farm.  He tells me Panfilo calls him, demanding that he not forget to help me.  It was overgrown with native wild sunflower plants, which can grow well over six feet and with very strong stalks.  He quickly wrangled those sunflowers out of my walled garden space, and burned them all.  He tilled the plot and hewed out rows, so that by the time he left, my garden was once again ready for spring planting.  In the open fields, he cut down the bushy sapling huizache trees that were always popping up.  I was sad to see him return to the border.

               One day I was out in my field trying to burn off some of the dry brush around my small peach orchard.  I had a hose at ready, and a rake, but there was so much dry brush that I could not contain it.  The adrenalin flowed as I rushed back and forth around the edges, beating down the flames only to have them pop up again.  The smoke filled the air.  A car rushed up the drive and slammed on the brakes.  In a heartbeat, Chavello had seen the smoke and rushed over from the neighbor’s farm to see if I was in trouble.  We got the fire under control, and of course he admonished me for not being smarter in my burning.  He was right.

               I noticed he had brought a horse with him on this trip.  I told him I would like to take care of the horse; I have experience and I have the space.  But he chose to leave the horse in care of his employer. 

               After some weeks I noticed the horse was no longer in the neighbor’s field. Apparently the horse kicked him lightly, and that was enough.  The horse was then passed on to another ranch, in care of a young man barely out of his teens.  Before long, I heard that this young man and Chavello were in conflict; probably about money.  Caring for a horse costs.  Again I said to Chavello that he should let me have the horse for care.  Finally, the young man, Chelo, rode into my yard bareback on the horse, with only string for a bridle and no bit.  He left me and the horse in a haughty huff.

               By phone I asked Chavello if the horse had a saddle.  Apparently Chelo was holding it for ransom.  He told me he wanted 1,000 pesos.  A few days after he brought the bareback horse, the price had gone up to 2,000.  This time I brought a man with me, and offered 1,000 pesos.  He released the saddle, which I tossed into my spare room.

               Here I was, at last realizing a dream I’ve held for almost all of my 80 years.  My very own (and Chavello’s, in absencia) beautiful beast, haunches shining copper in the sunlight, white socks on his hind ankles, a ball of white on his face, between his eyes.  Like a shooting comet,  the fiery tail trailing down his long face splattered on the end of his nose.  I sensed that he was young; eventually I learned he is two years old.  You know, that is in horse years.  Actually I feel he has already passed his third birthday.  He is more than ready to be gelded, but Chavello may want to breed him so we put that off a while.

               This all reminds me of a few years back, when Jimmy offered me his potted strawberries.  He had a lot of them, and he had decided to get rid of them.  Without prior notice, he told me to come and take them away.  There I was, on Easter weekend, frantically trying to prepare my first garden bed to accommodate about 40 strawberry plants, half of them with pot broken and roots exposed.  RIP

               My horse has no place to lie his head.

               On my three acres there is plenty of grass and green stuff for him to graze.  He has also found his way over to my next-door neighbor’s field, which is fallow this year.  At least over there he can find shade from the burning midday sun, whereas my acreage has no shade trees.

               I tried to tie him, on a 20-yard rope, to a spot in the field, wrapping the rope around the base of a sapling huizache tree, many of which were popping up again.  As he wandered in the night he would go around and around these low bushy thorny things, shortening his rope until by the time I got to him at dawn, he was immobile.  Once I drove a six-inch spike down into the ground, leaving only enough exposed for a knot.  In the morning I found him stuck to a dead cedar tree.  In his wake he had knocked down the clothesline pole which had been set in concrete, landscape rocks strewn all about, and the spike trailing in the dust.

               I know I need a corral for him, and a stable.  Finding someone who could undertake such a project proved elusive.  Then one day, my new friend and I were chatting in the car on our way to her doctor’s appointment in Durango, when I asked her what work her husband did.  He’s a construction contractor, she said. Prayers answered, I arranged for him to come out to the ranch and build me a stable out of the old wood boards and poles that were stored here.  In four days it was done.

               Before this could be completed, though, I awoke one morning to find Pata Blanca’s morning cereal untouched.  I searched the grounds and nearby copse for him, to no avail.  My heart fell.  At last I had to tell Chavello.  He had various theories, certain that someone had taken him in the night.  My dog did not rouse me, however, so I was fairly certain no one had entered the grounds. Finally, the next day, he suggested that I should check Rancho Seco.  Well, I’ve heard that name many times, as if it is a landmark or something that I should surely know.  Jose Luis was just starting to build the stable, so I asked him about it.  Turns out, it is the next dusty outcropping of buildings down the dirt road towards the north.  The end of the trail, just a little further than I had ever walked.

               I jumped into the car and rushed over there.  It couldn’t have been more than 8 miles, if that.  I wandered the dusty streets, until at last I found him!  Three men were just dispersing from proximity to a corral, which looked like a stock loading bay. Inside an inner gated enclosure I saw, to my great relief, my very agitated horse.  With their permission I went inside.  His coat was slick with sweat, his inner butt cheeks white with sweaty froth.  It took him a while to slow his frantic pacing and really look at me, and smell me.  I stayed with him a few minutes, until he was calmer.  I rushed back home where I grabbed a bucket and bottles of water, and grain.  I also grabbed the stout 20-yard rope, and a thinner training rope of 10 feet.

               Before going back to Rancho Seco I looked for a neighbor with a horse trailer.  My nearest neighbor, Oscar, who originally had cared for the horse, was not home.  Then I went to the elderly gentleman I had recently come to know.  He has two riding horses, and a trailer.  When I got to his house he and his teenage son were heading for his car, about to go somewhere.  I asked for the use of the trailer, but of course, I could not haul it behind my Toyota Rav4 SUV.  He said I didn’t need a trailer, I could tie the horse to the car and ‘tow’ him that way.  Oof.

               Pata sucked all the water down, and crunched the oats.  Slowly I became conscious of my surroundings; the mares on the other side of the stone wall from this corral.  This is what had drawn him.  When I had first arrived, the horses had been loose and grazing in the field.  By the time I got back the second time, the horses and three colts were tied up to a tree at the stone wall.

               After the horse has drunk and eaten, I put his halter on.  I tied the rope to the back of the car, attaching it to the loop where the door catches when it closes.  I tried to shorten the rope considerably, it slid easily through the metal loop.  I hooked the other end of the rope to his halter, but he was still quite agitated.  I tried to get in the car, but he followed me around the car until his rope, trailing behind him, was under the driver’s side fender.  Then he panicked, feeling stuck, and reared up.  As he rose, so did the rope and the complete front quarter panel of my car, ripping through it like paper.

               One of the workers, a mature ‘chaparro’, Shorty, came to my aid while the young men worked in the field again.  They were dressed in dark blue shirts and jeans, while he looked more like a cowboy with a checkered shirt, worn jeans and cowboy boots.  He took charge, untied the horse, and told me to drive south just a dozen yards or so, until I was well past the mares.  He walked the horse to me, discarding the large rope and attaching the shorter one.  He sat in the tail of the car, the rear door yawning above him, and held the free end of the rope, and we began the long slow journey back to my house.  I kept my eye on the rearview mirror.  We started out at a walk, about two miles an hour.  I am thinking about the hoofs of the horse; three of the four hoofs have no shoes, and we are on an unpaved road strewn with sharp pebbles and rocks.  The horse speeds up a little, trotting.  I checked my speedometer, about 10 MPH.  Is he limping?  Is that his normal gait?  He slows to a walk again.  Then the wrangler yells out “whoa” and I hit the brakes.  He jumps off, as the horse attempts to rear.  We have reached a cattle grate, and the horse will not cross it.  That is its purpose, and there is a gate alongside he has to walk through.  Back in the car, he tells me to continue.  I creep along.  The horse is trotting, and then he slows to a walk.  The man jumps off momentarily, while I tap the brakes and he catches up. This road seems to go on forever.  I am taut with tension, watching behind me, in front of me, the side mirrors, keenly attentive. 

               At last we arrive at Luz de Compasión.  The wrangler, maintaining control of the horse, stays with me a little longer, while I arrange to tie the horse down.  Then I drive him back to his ranch.  The two dogs that ran alongside us all the way to Luz now decide to hang around, and not return home. 

               I fail to get the kind man’s name, nor phone number.  He tells me he knows a farrier, for tending the horse’s hoofs, but I fail to get that number, too.  I give him pesos to thank him for his time, and he returns to the field to regale the other workers with these events.

               After a worrisome day and a half, my horse is back home.  But now he is riled up, maybe it’s the testosterone, and he no longer wants to continue our lessons in the lunge ring.  We go around a time or two, but then he bolts, pulling the rope out of my hands.  Of course, a good lunge ring will have a fixed pole at the center upon which to attach the lunge rope, but our horse ranching infrastructure is still nascent.  Day after day I take him back into the lunge ring, but now his new behavior is set.  I switch to a lightweight but sturdy chain which is long enough to hold on to, I do yank him back each time he bolts, but I can see retraining him will be a monumental task fit for a younger person.

               I’ve gotten him a good snaffle bit, appropriate to introduce to a young horse.  He is more than ready for this step, except for all the stop-and-go in his training.  A couple weeks ago I called this old gent with the two horses, and invited him to come over and give me some tips.  While he was showing me how to put on this second-hand saddle, we discovered that it was missing a couple of little straps.  We fixed that with string.  When he or I put our foot in the stirrup, not so much to mount him as to introduce him to this new weight, he cocked his rear leg ready for the kick.  I managed to quell that reaction for the moment, but training him to the saddle will be another tough adventure.  I only hope that the owner will come down from the border next month and take care of these behavioral issues.  Chavello talks about bringing a filly to live here, and starting our own little fold.  This is a pipe dream, unless he decides to stay on the ranch full time. 

               Now that Pata has his very own house, the new stable, we have some new routines.  I only feed him oats and hay in that place, and at night.  As the sun lowers behind the mountain, he knows to walk into the stable and await his meal.  I lock him in.  In the morning as the sun rises I go out to see him, and I am still swooning at the new sound of his nickering when he sees me.  He struggles against me as I put his halter on, and then I swing wide the gate for the day.  I try to leave him to roam during the day, getting his fill from the pasture.  The halter is in place in case, for some reason, I need to grab him and stake him to his 20-yard rope. 

               Panfilo says he would like to come down to help out with the horse.  I think that is a lovely idea.  Time will tell if it is in the Lord’s plan for us.

               There you have it, an update on the latest changes to my country lifestyle.